CT Green Bank Crowdfunds $1M in Solar Loans

HartfordBusiness.com
August 18, 2015

The Connecticut Green Bank has become the first government agency to successfully use private crowdfunding to provide private financing for solar incentive programs.

The Green Bank packaged $1 million of its loan programs and sold that bundle to solar crowdfunding platform Mosaic, which in turn offered it to its individual investors. For as little as $25, investors using the Mosaic platform could then financially back the bundle for a 5.5 percent yield over a 15-year term.

“The success of this initiative demonstrates … that there is a new market for residential solar financing through crowdfunding,” said Bryan Garcia, Connecticut Green Bank President and CEO.

The Green Bank provided the initial $5 million in funding for those solar loans. The bank then partnered with Sungage Financial to develop a first-of-its-kind formula using projected energy savings from the solar projects as a valuation to size the loans.

The $1 million worth of loans that were crowdfunded had originally supported the installation of 100 solar arrays in Connecticut.